“Anticipation around the upcoming release of “Halo Wars” is mounting. The demo, which was released on Xbox LIVE on Feb. 5, quickly set the day-one record for the most demo downloads on the service, and in just its first five days, has been downloaded by more than 2 million Xbox LIVE Gold members around the world.”

from the Official Halo Wars Community Site.

I was and still am a huge fan of Age of Empires. In fact while working for Easylink Services in Dayton, Ohio, we regularly would have LAN parties playing huge multiplayer battles of Age of Empires. I learned quickly to fear war elephants! I continued to support the game purchasing AOE2 and AOE: Age of Mythology and mastered the use of tribuchets. I have yet to pick up AOE3, but have played it and it is awesome!

So then can the world of Halo and the familiar game play of AOE be combined in a fun fast paced action packed RTS game? Heck yeah it can! I was among those 2 million and downloaded the Halo Wars demo the first day it was available on Xbox Live. I had a blast playing it. I started by trying the tutorial but quickly became bored and simply wanted to start playing a real skirmish.

I started with a base and one active warthog, who had no weapon upgrades yet, but had a special ability of ramming enemy targets. The base setup is different but really sets the stage for a fast paced game. Confined in a small square sector you have your “town center” or your main base. Around that base are what I would call building pods. Selecting a building pod section will give you options to build onto your base with whatever building you choose. Such as an armory, supply factory, reactor plant and continues with additional building options opening as you progress your army. Unlike AOE you do not have to go out forging for wood, stone or gold. Rather you use your supply building to add additional building supplies to your base. Also attached to your base are smaller building pods to use for turrets. I constructed 2 turrets on each corner which proved to be a great protection as seconds later elite were attacking my base with their energy swords.

So then I began to build. I added 2 supply buildings and an reactor plant. I then was able to upgrade my supply buildings to increase my supplies much quicker. I then added an armory and also added the gunner upgrade to my warthogs, allowing current warthogs to have a gunner as an added weapon. I started to build infantry men and noticed that they came out of my base in packs of 3, awesome! I quickly had an army of battle ready warthogs and infantry men, so on I went to engage the enemy.

As I journeyed to the enemy location we were attacked by a prophet? Weird, but yet, a prophet was attacking us in his floating chair with some kind of laser weapon. I quickly ended his effort to stop me and continued to find the main base of the elite. We began to attack when elites began to come out of the base, followed by what looked like walking banshees. Sadly my small army was defeated but I now knew what was in store. So back to the base I went to rebuild my forces.

This whole time I was still learning the game and by merely just testing the buttons I quickly understood how to select individual troops, local units, all units and even units of a certain type. Even using the select tool to select multiple units at once was rather easy. But I still was unsure how to jump back to my base or how to switch to troops that were engaged or scouting on the map. I hadn’t tried the D-pad and found that yep, there it was, I could toggle to my base and even find troops on the ground with ease. I even discovered special weapons when pressing up on the D-pad. Awesome!

I would go on but I am now wanting to play the game again! So yeah I’m excited about this game. I know they have tried RTS games on consoles in the past and none of them really got my attention. Either due to bad controls or just a game that wasn’t all that exciting. But now with Ensemble using one of the most popular game formats out there in Halo, this game is looking better and better the more I hear about it.

If you haven’t played the demo, I highly recommend it. It’s a lot of fun!